On September 5, 2007, during my 34th week of pregnancy, my daughter stopped all fetal movement. I went to the OBGYN for my doctor to perform a stress test on the baby. After the test, my doctor assured me that my baby was healthy and fine and he asked me to come back the next morning just to make sure she was still doing fine. There was no movement overnight, so the doctor decided to do a stress ultrasound that showed my daughter was in distress because the umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck. My doctor came in and told me that he was admitting me into the hospital and I would deliver my daughter within the next 48 hours through c-section, if everything went according to plan. I was put in a room and given Celestone shots to mature my daughter’s lungs since she would be born six weeks early.

On Saturday, September 8, 2007 at 8:02 a.m. my daughter, Taelor Brooke, was born. She was rushed to the NICU because she was having difficulty breathing. After several tests, scans, and ultrasounds, the neonatologist came into my room to tell me that my daughter had a right pneumothorax, a PDA in her heart and a small bleed on her brain. They put in a central line and started her on several medications in hopes to clear up all problems. Her doctor told me not to get my hopes up because my daughter was very sick and if she came home it would be in six weeks, around her due date.

On Sunday night, September 6th, 2007 Rod Wilkin brought Delores and Bill Winder to the hospital to meet and pray with me, my family, and Taelor Brooke. Delores and I went down to the NICU where Delores prayed over and anointed my daughter concentrating on her heart, lungs, and brain. Before we left, Delores told me that Taelor Brooke would get worse because the devil was going to attack us. She then said that I had to stay strong and believe that God loved me and my daughter enough to heal her completely! While we were in the room, a peace that is indescribable came over me and I knew that everything was fine. Later that night my daughter’s neonatologist came into my room to tell me that they had to put my daughter on a ventilator because she had quit breathing, and they were going to fully sedate her and she did not need to be stimulated. I was upset and initially mortified that I might lose my baby, but after a few quick minutes of crying, I realized I had to claim that my daughter was not sick and that God was going to heal her.

Over the next several days, I sat in a rocking chair by her in the NICU praying over and over again for God to please heal my baby and make her whole. Four days after Delores came to pray over Taelor Brooke, the PDA in her heart had completely closed. A few days after that, her lungs were fully developed and opened and she was off the ventilator. I was able to take my healthy baby girl home on September 18, 2007, twelve days after the doctors told me it would be at least six weeks if she made it out. A week after we got home, we went for a follow up on the bleed in her brain. The radiologist could not even find a bleed or traces of a bleed.

To this day, Taelor Brooke is a normal healthy 23 months old. There are no words or gestures I can express to Delores for showing me that God can and will heal. Before having my daughter, I did not think or believe that God loved me enough to heal my daughter, but now I know He does and He will!